


Safe

by MakingPoetry



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-TWS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:25:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2195133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakingPoetry/pseuds/MakingPoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one had ever said that their new life together was going to be easy, and it wasn't. For the first few weeks, Bucky didn't even sleep in the bed in the spare room; he slept on the floor, bundled up in a blanket or two, a weapon either in his hand or within reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what happened here. The other day I asked my friend for prompts, and the prompt I got was basically 'post ca: tws, Bucky is recovering but doesn't remember anything yet. One night he has a nightmare and Steve wakes up to him reciting his name, rank, and number', and then it turned into this. I fulfilled the prompt, at least.

No one had ever said that their new life together was going to be easy, and it wasn't. For the first few weeks, Bucky didn't even sleep in the bed in the spare room; he slept on the floor, bundled up in a blanket or two, a weapon either in his hand or within reach. At least he didn't sleep with a loaded gun next to him after the time he shot a hole through the bedroom wall, if only because Steve had managed to convince him it was a bad idea. And what would the neighbors think anyway-especially if they were shot in the middle of the night?

Sometimes, he slept in the bed, but sometimes that only seemed to make his nightmares worse. Steve found out first hand one night, when Bucky was actually loud enough to wake him from two rooms away. He'd gone in to comfort Bucky and had ended up with a very distinct hand shaped bruise around his neck. Not that it had been Bucky's fault, not that he'd meant to hurt Steve or throw him across the room, or had to apologize (which he did anyway), but Steve knew better from then on about waking Bucky up when he was having a nightmare.

When Steve woke up in the morning, there was a pot of coffee brewing and a stack of pancakes on the counter, still warm, but Bucky was nowhere around. He didn't come back for three days, and when he did, he didn't tell Steve where he had been. Steve didn't push the subject.

~-----~

That night, it wasn't screaming that woke Steve up in the middle of the night. For a change, he had been unable to sleep himself because of bad dreams. He'd been on his way to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk when he passed by the spare bedroom and heard Bucky's voice. It was too soft to make out from the hallway, so Steve stepped closer. The door wasn't shut all the way, so he nudged it open a little more, enough to lean in, to check on Bucky.

Bucky wasn't in bed. He was sitting in the corner of the room in the dark, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a knife clenched in one hand. His eyes were open, but they were unfocused, unseeing. He was looking in the direction of the door, but it was as if he was looking right through it.

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, three-two-five-five-seven…" 

It was the same thing, over and over again, just like when Steve had found him in the Hydra lab, and it made Steve's chest tighten. The look in Bucky's eyes now was the same as then, and there was the same quiet, lost quality to his voice. It made Steve want to snap him out of it, to bring him back to the here and now and let him know that he was safe, but it wasn't as simple as that and he wasn't sure how to proceed. Bucky couldn't have been awake, because before he had left, he couldn't even remember his own name still, and now here he was reciting the whole thing like he was afraid he would forget it if he didn't. As if he hadn't already forgotten it.

"Bucky?" Steve's voice was quiet when he spoke, and he pushed the door open slowly. Quick movements startled Bucky, and asleep or not, Steve didn't want to provoke the man. The last thing he needed was another thing to apologize to Steve for, when nothing was even his fault in the first place.

Bucky reacted to the sound of his voice, going silent as his gaze snapped to where Steve stood, for the most part focused now. He pressed back farther into the corner, sinking down and pressing his knees to his chest. The metal of his left arm glinted faintly in the dark as he shifted, the motion causing the blanket to slip down. His knuckles were white as he clutched the knife, but his posture wasn't aggressive; it was defensive. In some way, he expected Steve to hurt him, or at least to try. Maybe he thought he was back in the Hydra base and that he was going to be punished-he'd told Steve about that once, in passing, that they'd hurt him for remembering, for asking questions. Or maybe he knew exactly who Steve was right now, but he still expected Steve to hurt him, like he had on the helicarrier when he'd been pinned down, when he'd had that awful trapped, frightened look on his face. It was a look that Steve still couldn't get out of his mind. It was waiting for him some nights, as soon as he closed his eyes to go to sleep, that and the way he'd tried to reach for Bucky all those years, but had been unable to save him.

He realized that he'd gotten lost in thought when Bucky shifted again, the normally soft sounds his arm made somehow startling loud in the silence. It was enough to snap Steve out of it, and though he took a step farther into the room, he went no closer than that, stayed there near the doorway so that Bucky wouldn't feel crowded or threatened. "It's alright, Buck. It's just a dream. You're safe now."

With the way that Bucky kept staring at him, he would never have known if he was getting through to him or not, if Bucky's hold on his knife hadn't visibly relaxed after a few long minutes. His expression changed from wary and lost to confused, like there was something about what Steve had said that he couldn't understand. "Safe," he repeated, slow and so quiet that Steve nearly missed it, and found himself leaning towards Bucky to try and hear him better.

"Yeah, you're safe," Steve repeated. Bucky hadn't been safe for a long time, not with Hydra, not before that, and not after, either, when he had been living on the streets before coming to Steve. He wouldn't be surprised if Bucky had forgotten what it was like to be safe all-together, just like Hydra had taken so many other things from him. Steve would just have to show him what it was like, all over again. "Listen, I was about to have a glass of warm milk, why don't we have one together? It might help you sleep better."

Bucky stiffened at that, his eyes going from confused to hard. His gaze shifted to the side, not focused on Steve any more, and he shook his head, quick and hard. Steve was about to apologize, to suggest something else, but then Bucky was moving. Slowly, he reached up to place the knife on the nightstand, fingers carefully uncurling from around the handle, and then he got to his feet. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, seeming somehow so small and vulnerable there in the dark, as he watched Steve expectantly, waiting for him.

Steve didn't know what had just gone through Bucky's mind, what sort of memory he'd managed to trigger, but whatever it was, Bucky seemed to have dealt with it alright enough. That was a good thing, then; baby steps. He led the way to the kitchen, glancing once over his shoulder to make sure that Bucky was following him. He was. His footsteps were whisper quiet, the bottom edge of the blanket barely grazing the floor behind him. Bucky perched on one of the kitchen chairs-Steve couldn't really call it sitting, not with the way that Bucky sat on the edge, like he was ready to spring up at a moment's notice. He said nothing about it, just went about warming up the milk, acutely aware that Bucky's eyes were on him the whole time. That had been unnerving at first, to just turn around and find Bucky staring at him at random times during the day, but by now he'd gotten used to it.

He offered Bucky a smile while he let the milk cool a bit, and though Bucky didn't smile back, at least he blinked. It was better than nothing.

Carefully, he picked up the glasses, carrying them over to the table, and set them down, one in front of Bucky. The moment that he had let go of them, Bucky snagged him by the wrist, pulling him down. Before Steve could process what was happening, Bucky's lips were against his, and for someone who probably hadn't had much experience kissing in the last seventy years-which could be said about the both of them and not just Bucky-he made up for it with determination and either confidence or blind hope. There was almost nothing in the world that Steve wanted to do more than kiss Bucky senseless, to _be_ kissed senseless, because it had been so long since the last time that they'd even touched each other in any way that was remotely intimate, but now was the not the time. Bucky didn't have his memories back, who knew if the _feelings_ were there or if he was just curious, if he'd noticed the way that Steve looked at him sometimes (a lot of the time).

Right now it would have been like taking advantage of Bucky, and that was something that Steve never would have been able to forgive himself for. He didn't even know how long he'd been kissing Bucky for by the time he came to his senses and pulled away, but he was vaguely breathless and Bucky seemed…disappointed or worried, maybe. There was something distinctly vulnerable in his expression as he let go of Steve's wrist and ducked his head a little.

"Did I do something wrong?" Though it somehow sounded more like _is there something wrong with me_?

"Buck, no, it's not that," Steve pulled another chair around the table as he spoke, so that he could sit close enough to Bucky to touch his arm. He wasn't sure if it was much of a comfort, but it got Bucky to look at him, at least, and that was a start. "I don't want you to do anything because you _think_ you should. I want it to be because _you_ want to." Because Bucky remembered.

"Who says I didn't want it?" he looked away from Steve, prodding at his glass of milk with one finger like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with it.

"Did you?"

Bucky hesitated for a minute, tentatively pulling the glass closer to him and frowning at it like it had done him wrong somehow. "I was curious. It was familiar."

"That's not exactly the same thing," Steve said gently. _Familiar_ was a good start, but it wasn't the same as remembering, and he didn't want Bucky to end up doing things that he wasn't comfortable with for any reason. "You'll get there some day, I know you will."

Bucky grumbled out a quiet sound that could have been a word or a sentence, but ducked his head again so that his hair was falling across his face, hiding his eyes. He seemed to be much more focused on the glass of milk now, though whether it was because he was upset over what Steve had said or something else remained a mystery. Either way, Steve breathed out a sigh, giving Bucky's arm a gentle squeeze before getting up to move his chair back around the table. By the time he'd turned again, Bucky's head was down on the table, pillowed by his arm, and he was sound asleep.

Bewildered, Steve looked at him for a long moment. He wasn't sure what had just happened; he'd never seen Bucky fall asleep that fast, not when he was haunted by the sort of things that Steve knew he was. He looked peaceful this time though, and Steve was reluctant to wake him. Bucky was up in a heartbeat anyway, when Steve tried to carefully take the glass of milk from his hand so that it wouldn't spill.

"Steve?" Bucky seemed just as confused as he was, and was looking around the kitchen like he couldn't understand how he had gotten there. "Why am I in the kitchen?"

That was when Steve realized it; Bucky had been asleep the whole time. He had to have been, because his confusion was too genuine to have been faked, and he looked honestly disturbed that he was someplace he couldn't remember getting to. Not only did Bucky sleepwalk, but he sleep _kissed_. That was a new one. He wasn't going to tell Bucky about it though; if he didn't remember, he was probably better off not knowing right now. There was enough going on for him to worry about as it was. He needed the time to piece himself back together, without any sort of pressure. "You were sleepwalking. I got us some milk."

Bucky's gaze shifted to the glass of milk that was still in Steve's hand, slowly drawing back from it, and then looked back up at Steve. Whatever strange thing he had against milk seemed to be present again.

"It's alright. You don't have to drink it," Steve said. "Why don't you go back to bed?"

Bucky visibly relaxed, nodding as he got to his feet. He paused for a moment like he wanted to say something to Steve, but then seemed to change his mind. He shook his head, moving towards the hallway, but this time it was Steve that stopped him.

"Hey, Buck?"

He turned back towards Steve, fixing his blanket which had started to slip down one shoulder again.

"You know you're safe here, right?"

There was no immediate answer. Bucky stared at him for a long moment, his forehead creasing as he frowned. Steve was patient though, setting the glass of milk down on the table next to the other one while he waited. At length, Bucky nodded.

"I know."

Steve hoped that it wasn't just to appease him, that Bucky really _did_ feel safe here. Three in the morning wasn't the best time to get into it though, either way; they could touch on the subject again some time when the sun was out. He smiled and nodded. "Good."

Bucky stood there for a moment longer before disappearing down the hallway, returning to his room and closing the door behind him.

_Safe_.


End file.
